Harold. Say it!"

"No; I can't."

"Yes, you can. Come!"

But she defied him with tightly closed lips and dancing eyes. With
feminine instinct she had discovered that the irresistible Captain was
piqued and stimulated by the unusual taste of opposition.

"You little minx!" he said, lifting an accusing finger. "Those eyes of
yours are going to do a lot of damage before they get through with it."

Eleanor took kindly to the thought that she was dangerous. If she could
cause disturbance to an individual by the guarded flutter of her eyelids,
what effect might she not produce by giving them full play before a
larger audience?

"Do you really think I could act if I got the chance?" she asked
dreamily.

"I am absolutely sure. Your grandfather's quite right when he says you
were born to the footlights. With your voice and your unusual coloring
and your plastic little body----"

"But you can't imagine the opposition," Eleanor broke in. "It isn't as if
my mother and father were living. I believe they would understand. But
grandfather and the aunties, and even Uncle Ranny, throw a fit at the
mere mention of the stage."

"You do not belong to them," said the Captain impatiently. "You do not
even belong to yourself. A great talent belongs to the world. All these
questions will settle themselves, once you take the definite step."

"And you actually believe that I will get to New York to study?"

"I don't believe--I _know_. I intend to make it my business to see that
you do."

There was a confident ring of masterful assurance in his voice that
carried delicious conviction. A person who was so absolutely sure of
himself made other people sure of him, too, for the moment.

Eleanor, sitting low in the car, with her absent eyes fixed on the road
ahead, lapsed into a daydream. From an absorbed contemplation of herself
and her dramatic career, her mind veered in gratitude to the one who most
believed in its possibility. What a friend he had been! Just when she had
been ready to give up in despair, he had fanned her dying hope into a
glorious blaze that illuminated every waking hour. And it was not only
his sympathetic interest in her thwarted ambition that touched her: it
was also the fact that he had rescued her from the daily boredom of
sitting with elderly ladies making interminable surgical dressings, and
by an adroit bit of diplomacy outwitted the family and introduced her as
a ward visitor at the camp hospital.

The